Learn how bank feed syncing works in PocketSmith.

In this user guide

How your bank feeds are updated in PocketSmith

Overall, there are few factors that influence how your bank feeds and transactions are updated in your PocketSmith account.

1

Bank feed sync by PocketSmith: PocketSmith will attempt to update your bank feeds when you log in to the web application and based on an automatic syncing schedule. However, the transactions and balances that PocketSmith can sync and display in your account depend upon the information Yodlee gathers, as described below.

2

Yodlee gathering transactions: Our bank feed provider, Yodlee, usually gathers transactions for PocketSmith to import once or twice every 24 hours. This does not mean that they are automatically synced into PocketSmith, but rather that Yodlee has made transactions available for PocketSmith to sync. A result of this is that bank feed syncs made by PocketSmith might not always retrieve your most recent transactions, especially if those transactions were very recently made.

3

Yodlee updating balances: Yodlee will gather up-to-date balances roughly every 2-3 hours, when PocketSmith triggers a sync request. This means that you might be able to see your latest balances for your accounts, but not your latest transactions.

Bank feed sync by PocketSmith

The frequency of automatic syncing for your bank feeds is determined by a schedule that PocketSmith sets for each user. This schedule changes depending on how often you use PocketSmith. For example, if you log in to PocketSmith every day your bank feeds will sync every 6 hours or so; if you only log in once a week, they may only sync once every 3 days.

Only by logging in to the web application can you trigger a bank feed sync outside of the regular, automatic bank feed sync schedule. Logging in to the mobile app does not trigger a bank feed sync, but it does contribute towards activity, thus affecting the frequency of scheduled automatic syncing: if you use the mobile app a lot, your bank feeds will automatically sync more frequently.

Additionally, a user on the mobile app cannot trigger a manual bank feed sync. One of the reasons for this is that it is not currently possible to respond to a MFA (multi-factor authentication) request for a bank feed from the mobile app. PocketSmith has improvements planned for our mobile apps which include the ability for users to enter MFA on mobile.

Note:

Even if your automatic syncing schedule is set to every three hours or you log in to the web app manually to trigger a sync of your bank feeds in PocketSmith, ultimately the data that PocketSmith can sync at these times is dependent on the transactions and balance information that Yodlee has gathered into their database.

Yodlee gathering transactions

Yodlee will attempt to gather transactions into their system once every 24 hours, where possible. This gathering process involves them checking for new transactions, verifying pending and posted transactions from the past 28 days, and updating account balances in their system. Yodlee won't gather transactions from bank feeds that require additional security information until that additional information is entered.

It is important to note that while account balances can be updated more frequently, transactions will only be updated once or twice in a 24 hour period.

Yodlee gathering transactions does not mean that your accounts in PocketSmith will be automatically updated. The updating of your transactions
within PocketSmith is discussed above.

Multi-factor authentication (MFA) on bank feeds

Only bank feeds that do not require additional security can be automatically updated. This is because many bank feeds use MFA (multi-factor authentication) when syncing. Accounts listed as using MFA can only be synced (refreshed) by logging into the web app where you can enter your MFA information. Accounts that don't use MFA are automatically synced depending on your activity level and resulting sync schedule.

Forcing MFA bank feeds to sync

Security Question

If you know that you have answered your security questions in PocketSmith and are no longer asked any security questions for your bank feed, you are able to force them to be included in the automatic syncing schedule as shown here: Force bank feeds with MFA to automatically sync. This will mean that you won't have to log into the web app in order for this bank feed to be included in the automatic syncing schedule.

Security Token

If your MFA requires information that changes each time you log in to online banking - e.g. a one-time password via SMS, or a NetGuard token - you should not force the bank feed to automatically sync as the bank feed will not be able to sync without the necessary information and will return with an error.

SMS or email alerts when bank feeds sync

If you have enabled SMS or email alerts for your online banking logins, you will also receive these messages when your bank feed syncs. Because PocketSmith syncs your bank feed while you are not logged into PocketSmith it is also possible you will receive these messages when you are not logged in to your PocketSmith account. You may like to consider disabling text alerts on your bank website as these can be sent very early in the morning depending on your time zone!

Note

If you receive an unexpected One Time Password (OTP) request while you are not logged into PocketSmith please get in touch and we’ll look into this for you.